Saturday Ski trip to Pennsylvania Connor and I went to Blue Mountain for a Saturday ski trip to break in the new ski boots! Alast I was able to give skiing on the east coast another try. We skied some green trails and then headed for the blue. I was starting to get tired pretty quickly and my shins were both starting to cramp up but I was already here and just needed to ski down the mountain. At the top of the blue trail I saw signs for a green trail to the left but I kept that in the back of my mind for later. As we were skiing we kept hitting ice patches and they were gradually getting larger and larger as we traversed the mountain. I thought it would be better on the adjacent trail so we cut across the trees to another trail. I asked Connor if this was a green trail and he said yea... secretly thinking it was probably a blue. I rested for a bit to alleviate the cramping in my legs and I assessed the trail. Mogules to my left but a pretty wide open space and still some sheets of ice. My mind was so focused on getting down the hill that I wasn't paying much attention to anything else except stay away from the mogules and use caution with the ice. It was a race to the bottom because my shins were spent... The sensation was like trying to walk with pins and needles in your feet. I hit some ice patches pretty hard and spun right back up the hill a couple of times but I kept laughing and apologizing to the other skiers. By some miracle we made it to the bottom of the trail and I got some water and regained my strength to get back to the lodge for lunch. As Connor and I are relaxing by the fire he realizes that the trail we just went down couldn't have been a Green trail. It was a black diamond! My first one ever 😁 and I was so fearless flying down it!
Stick lessons on a rainy Sunday at Sandy Hook.
Connor always asks me if I want a stick lesson and lately I've had a lot more "nah maybe another time" responses. It was an overcast afternoon w some rain and we were just getting back from a surprise trip to hoffmans. It was 39 degrees lol just warm enough to justify a frosty treat. We normally go to RBR's parking lot but we decided to give sandy hook a try. They have much larger parking lots which means more space for shifting into higher gears. We found a really good empty parking lot and in the adjacent lot there was also a student driver getting parallel parking lessons. We went around a dozen times testing out break clutch and starting and stopping and doing it all over again. Then we realize I probably needed to work on quickly breaking in the event of needing to stop very fast. For the time being we referred to this as "squirrel"! sometimes I let the squirrel live... other times I wasn't quick enough and I don't think he got away. It made it a lot of fun. The most fun stick lesson so far! We were working on second and third year and trying to get down transitioing smoothly. This is not a category where I excel very much... If ya catch my drift.
Connor said if I do this successfully that we would drive around on the streets of Sandyhook! What an incentive. Off we went driving around up to stop signs and yield signs and other cars were involved. I stalled the car, rolled backwards on the hill, and had to use the park break... but overall I got a lot of really good real-time experience. Then Connor asked if I was okay and wanted to drive home!?! I thought about the route... It seemed pretty simple and we gave it a go. Starting out there's a car behind me... this very much intimidated me. I decided to try to speed up as quickly as I could so that I was driving at a normal speed... then Connor informed me not to go too fast, there was a cop behind me.
I was already thinking of my alibi and how on earth I would stop the car if the cop actually pulled me over. Luckily none of that happened and we just drove home and I parked the car right in the driveway... it was pretty awesome!
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